Kenny Shopsin and Happiness

July 5

Kenny Shopsin, the strange and brilliant chef, not known for his social graces, gave me one of the most helpful ideas for parenting. He said that to find work that has meaning for you is the best example you can set, and that the best thing you can do for your kids is be happy yourself.

I held Colby, then a tiny newborn, in my lap and listened as he expounded, sitting across the table from us, exhausted from a day of cooking and yelling at his four kids, all at the time working to some degree in the restaurant. When Kenny does anything but rant and curse, you listen. He has an exceedingly rough personae, but under that is a compassion and an intelligence far stronger than his roaring expletives.

Contemplating his words now, from way inside the path of parenting and family life, they look different than when I first heard them. When I first heard, "Be happy yourself," it sounded obvious and easy, as easy as happiness ever is. Now, there is a larger family, work, and the thousand tiny shirts and shorts and socks that need folding. How to find happiness and do good work when you feel life is pulling you in a thousand directions, all of them important?

By making choices, and, the ever famous key to marital bliss, compromise. Make the beds but let the floors go. Write for an hour in the morning and accept the longing for a day. Make a dinner reservation.

What Kenny did not say was how in family life the happiness of the couple, individually and together becomes so linked.

Children are an astonishing amount of work. Their demands are tireless, their needs absolute. Meanwhile the rest of life clamors for attention. And, then there is each other. For us, that is the easiest one to lose track of. We operate for long periods under the illusion that we, the couple, can wait. That we come after kids, dishes, tractors, work.

We must take care of ourselves and our love the way we care for all the other aspects of a full life. To not let the inertia of distance between us become a habit, we need a moment together, to just gaze, and be.

We made plans for dinner out together and as I got ready I thought about all the small fissures between us, major and minor emotional infractions, moments of bad communication. I felt how that was not what I wanted dinner to be about, I did not want to talk, work, process. I wanted to be together, in the moment.

At dinner we laughed, we talked with our neighboring table, we caught up on the funny moments, profound work conversations, all the persistent beauty that occurred in the week. We invested in our happiness, the cornerstone of a loving, functional life, together. Thanks Kenny.

More Kenny wisdom, culinary and philosophical, can be found in his excellent cook book, pictured here. The essay on eggs is a revelation.

Sunshine Soup

Ithaca is freezing. Ice crystals cover the windows each morning, forming prisms and seaweed like shapes. Nearly every car has snow tires. Where once I loved austere white interiors, I now crave Marimekko. Winter is not only freezing, but there are weeks of gray skies. Days pass without a single beam of sunlight. The house is heated to sixty two during the day and fifty eight at night. We rely heavily on Craig's soups to give us a feeling of radiant warmth, and color.

One of Craig's favorite soups to make is Garlic Broth, Aïgo Boulido, from Lulu’s Provencal Table. As the cookbook brilliantly and forgivingly puts it, this soup is served in Provence to “soothe systems worn thin from enthusiastic celebration of the table.” We like it for those times, but also for its utter simplicity and warming effect.

On a particularly freezing day, the sky a thick gray that no sunlight could pass through, Craig decided to make Garlic Broth. I was engrossed in my task when he handed me my bowl. Afloat in the broth was a shiny fried egg, sprinkled with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. Holding the warm bowl, the ochre yolk, the light golden broth, it was as if the sun itself had just burst through the window and landed in my hands.

As I ate I thought about how cooking in season, in the winter, in the North East, we are releasing the energy we have stored from the sun. The seasons of sunshine and warm, workable earth are sustaining us through the winter when all is frozen and the sky is a persistent gray.

This local egg is from a chicken who eats local seed, grown in the sun. The garlic, grown in the rich black soil on the other side of the lake, ripens and cures in the warmth of summer, and is saved and coddled in the cool basement.

I never felt the direct link between work and harvest and surviving winter as immediately as I felt it the moment Craig gave me this bowl of soup. We survive the gray and cold both physically and spiritually through our store of the sun’s energy. Fortunately, we have the culinary gifts of Provence, and their wisdom about and reverence for food and sun, to make our survival beautiful, and delicious.

Garlic Broth, adapted from Lulu
Aïgo Boulido

1 quart water
Salt
2 bay leaves
1 head garlic, cloves separated and crushed
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 egg yolks, the traditional recipe
OR
4 whole eggs if you want to serve with fried egg
Garnish with scallions, chives or parsley

To make croutons:
Into a cast iron skillet on low heat pour a large splash of extra virgin olive oil. When it shimmers put in some day old plain baguette cut or torn into 1/2" cubes. Season with sea salt and black pepper to taste (a pinch of thyme or rosemary if you like) toss to coat the bread cubes with the oil and cook until toasted.

In a saucepan, bring the water, salt, bay leaves, garlic, and olive oil to a boil and hold, lid ajar, at a light boil for 15 minutes. For traditional: with wire whisk, whisk the egg yolks briefly in a soup tureen (any large bowl works fine.) Strain the broth, discard the bay leaves and garlic, and slowly pour the broth over the egg yolks, whisking at the same time. To serve, place toasted baguette or croutons in bowl and ladle broth over bread. For fried egg version, simply strain broth, ladle over croutons, and float the softly fried egg. Garnish and season well with salt and pepper.